Creation is the Theatre of God’s Glory

Introduction

New Series: I am so glad you are with us today. Today, we begin a new sermon series that we are titling “Bookends” in which we will be studying the first and the last book of the Bible. Beginning today, we start in Genesis chapter 1, and we will trace through much of Genesis all the way up through December. Then in January, we will turn our attention to the book of Revelation, the last of the Bible. These two books are bookends to scripture. The book of Genesis functions as a driving force of our life, telling principle foundational truths, of who God is, who we are, where we’ve come from. And the book of Revelation, serves to teach us about our telos, our ultimate purpose, what the Church is all about, and where God is leading it. These two books together function like a push and pull on our life. Genesis pushing us from behind, Revelation pulling us into who we’re becoming.

Principles for our Study: Today, we begin at the very beginning of the Bible, in Genesis chapter 1. As we dig into Genesis, I want to lay down two very clear and very important principles for studying Genesis.

#1 Read Genesis Literally: We will be reading Genesis as literal history. Unlike the Song of Solomon which was written and designed to be read allegorically. It is clear that Genesis is not allegorical. It is not simply mythology with principles to guide a people. It is an accurate telling of history, as it occurred in the real world. Adam and Eve are not mythological figures, they were the first two humans to have ever lived. Noah’s flood is not a mythological story. God indeed flooded the world as an act of judgment. I believe our faith in the literal reading of scripture is indeed supported by the overwhelming evidence of archaeology. But that is not the reason for our faith. The reason for our faith is because God has written it.

#2 Read Genesis Christologically: Third and finally. The Old Testament as a whole, but Genesis especially, contains in seed form, what the New Testament bears the flower of. The covenants and the promises we discover in Genesis, are ultimately fulfilled in Christ. And we do well to study the seed form of these covenants, in order to more greatly understand the flower that is Christ. In technical terms, it means we read the book of Genesis, Christocentrically. We have the light of the New Testament to inform the deeper principles behind many of these texts.

Big Idea: What is Genesis chapter 1 about? This first chapter is the account of God’s creation of the world. The central figure is good himself. And the main idea that I want to drive home is that ‘All of creation is the theater of God’s glory.’ That means the purpose of everything that was ever made, you and me, the squirrels, the ants, the bacteria, the sun, the moon, the stars, the galaxies, all of it, exists for a purpose. It is a theatre displaying the glory of God.

Meaning & Application

This text shows us four aspects of creation that display the glory of God.

I THE POWER OF GOD

First, the power of God. Our text today begins “In the beginning…” Verses 1-2 are a bit like a preamble to the rest of the chapter. They are like a prelude that summarizes and paves way for the main storyline. The entire Bible begins this way:

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

God Existed First: “In the beginning… God…” Before there were heavens, and before there was earth, and before there was time or space or matter, or laws of gravity or mathematics, God existed. He is outside of all of these things. The God of the Bible is the supreme force and power of all that exists. He stands outside of his creation as its governing authority. He is the artist and all of creation is his painting. He is the playwright and all of creation is his theater.

A Fixed Beginning: It is interesting to note that for some time among the scientific community, it was believed that the universe was eternal, that somehow it always existed. But the overwhelming scientific consensus today is that the universe had a fixed beginning, a starting point, where space and time and matter began to exist. In other words, the scientific community tried to get around the need for God’s creative power for some time, but only ended up proving their need for God. There is simply no way to explain the existence of the universe apart from God.

Atheism: In fact, this is the great choke point of the atheistic worldview. The atheistic worldview is built upon one overwhelming miracle that must be taken by faith. Namely, that something came from nothing. The atheistic worldview asks the Christian “Just give us this one miracle. We can’t explain it. We’re not even going to try to explain it. But just give us this one overwhelming miracle. That all that we see, including life, and stars, and love, spontaneously combusted out of nothing. Not out of dust, because dust didn’t exist until creation existed. Out of nothing.” I find that worldview presposterous. Again, I do not believe the biblical account of creation simply because the alternatives are weaker. I believe the biblical account of creation, because I believe the Bible is God’s Word. But I’ll tell ya, the alternative accounts of creation are far weaker. The Christian, standing on Genesis 1, stands on far logically superior ground than anybody else.

God Speaks: And it is important that we see in this text how powerful God is. With each point of creation we are told that God simply speaks and creation occurs. He does not wrestle with how hard the task is. He does not stress over the difficulty of creating such a universe as massive as the one we inhabit. This is not difficult for him.

Genesis 1:3 “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.”

Stand in Awe: Christian, there is something very stablizing in a Christian’s life when this simple fact becomes concrete in your heart and mind. The God of the Bible does not struggle to accomplish his will. Creation itself demonstrates his ultimate, supreme, power and sovereignty. All of creation does exactly what God tells it to do. In theological terms, we call this God’s sovereignty. This means, that he is in control, and nothing can thwart his purposes. If you have come in here today and your life feels out of control, I want you to behold the one who is in control. He speaks, and all of creation bends to his will. Behold the glory of God, in the power of God.

Creation is the theatre of God’s glory!

II THE ORDER OF GOD

Creation Rhythm: Second, let us see the order of God in creation. The order demonstrated in Genesis 1 showcases the glory of God. Where do we see order in this text. Well, this text has a very clear rythm to it that is marked by very clear words. it is almost like chapter 1 of Genesis is intentionally written with a poetic rhythm to it. Each of the six days of creation have the following pattern. They each begin “And God said.” Then there is an explanation that typically ends with the phrase “And it was so.” Typically it says that “God saw what he created was good.” Then each phase of the creation process ends with something like this, “And there as evening and there was morning, the first day.”

The Orderliness: Not only is there order to the rhythm of the text. But look at the organized fashion that God created. The first three days God is creating. He is creating light, and the sky, and the land and sea. But then the second three days he is filling those spaces he made. He fills the land with vegetation, the sky with sun and moon and stars, the sea with swarms of fish, the sky with birds, and the land with animals. There is a clear organized and orderly fashion by which creation takes place.

The World: The world we live in, despite the entrance of sin (which we will learn about in chapter 3), is a very orderly and rational universe. We take these things for granted, because most of us could not imagine a world that was not orderly and rational. But let us take a moment and realize together that the orderliness and rationality of the universe, is a reason to point to the glory of God. The universe doesn’t have to be orderly. It was created orderly, to point to God. Let’s think of three examples.

Gravity: Gravity always pulls us down. Why is the universe that way? There is no rule that says when you create a universe you have to make it in such a way that gravity holds things down. And yet it does. Can you imagine a world where gravity shifted every few seconds. One second your walking to work, the next your hovering forty feet above the ground. It would be chaos. So the next time you’re walking to work, take a moment to realize how incredibly orderly God was in creation and look up to heaven and say “Thank you for gravity!”

Time: We live in a universe where time moves consistently forward. But why is that the case? Why don’t we experience all time at the same moment, or experience moments of time at the same time, or sometimes find ourselves going backwards in time. (I know you’re thinking about blackholes and how time bends in a blackhole, but even that is orderly, you can solve that with equations, its bending is according to preset laws). But have you ever stopped to htink about why time moves orderly forward the way it does? And the next time you’re sitting in a sermon, and you’re starting to get bored, and you look at your watch to wonder how much the preacher has the left, look up to God and say, “Thank you God that minutes are the same today as they were yesterday.”

Math & Phsyics: Likewise, the laws of math are consistent. 2+2=4 today, and tomorrow, and forever. That doesn’t have to be the case. We happen to live in a universe that is orderly, so that the discoveries we make in mathematics today, can be applied to us tomorrow. Can you imagine if tomorrow 2+2=5. Or if suddenly, Newton’s laws of physics ceased to exist, and objects in motion began to moving in zig zag and curvy lines instead of straight lines. All of our buildings would fall over because the measurements would be off. Our roads would collapse. Civilization would cease immediately. Why does math work? Why does physics word? Because God is a God of order, and he created the universe to be a universe of order in order to showcase his glory! So the next time you’re driving in your car and push on your breaks, and your momentum slows appropriately because of Newtons discoveries of masses in motion, look up to God and say, “I’m so grateful you made physics.”

Implications: What are the implications of this? Well, it’s quite important, for two reasons.

Science: One, history records that it was Christians, thinking Christianly, operating out of a Christian worldview who developed science. Because they believed the world was rational, that God’s laws were discoverable, and consistent. No other worldview ever gave rise to the scientific method and the great scientific advancement as Christianity did, because of this principle. And so Christians, far from being afraid of science, as if somehow science is going to disprove God, recognize that the very foundations of science rest on the premise of God. A belief that the world is orderly a consistent.

Personal: Second, and far more personally. There are times when our life feels out of control. There are times when it can feel like everything is out of order, that the pressures are simply too much, that the stress is going to get you. But Genesis 1, says there is a God of order and reason, and He is in control. And when we don’t feel in control, He is.

The orderliness of creation showcases the glory of God!

III THE GOODNESS OF GOD

Third, the goodness of God showcases the glory of God. After each iteration of creation we are told that whatever God had just created was “good.” So in verse 4 we read,

Genesis 1:4 “And God saw that the light was good….”

This pattern continues throughout the entire creative process. God saw that it was good… And then at the very end, after God makes humanity, he looks at all of his creation and he verse 31 reads

Genesis 1:31 “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

What it Means: What does it mean that all of God’s creation was very good. There are a number of ways to understand that phrase.

Reflects the Nature of God: First, the goodness of the creation reflects the goodness of the creator. Because God is perfectly good and righteous and just and true, we would expect his creation to hold all of those qualities as well. In fact, when we see any of these qualities in the world around us, we trace them up to their source, to God, the ultimate goodness in the universe.

No Death or Tears: SEcond, this language is teaching us about the original integrity of God’s creation. Before sin entered the story, all of God’s creation was good. There was no death in it. There was no anger. There was no hatred. There was no brokenness. There was no war. There was no famine. There was no violence. There were no tears. There was no sadness. God’s original design, and original purpose for humanity was good.

Suited for God’s Glory: Third, this language of goodness can be read as describing that the world God created was perfectly suited for the purpose God created for. So for example, if I held a saw in my hand, and many of the teeth had been bent in the creation process and the edge had been dulled rather than sharpened, we would say “That’s a bad saw.” It would be bad becaue it wouldn’t be any good at the purpose for which it was made. A good saw would have all of its teeth in place, and its edges would be sharp for cutting. That saw would be good. In the same way, God creation has a purpose, namely to glorify God. Every ray of light… every drop of water… every molecule of air… every sunrise… and every sunset… every army of ants… every rock… and every mountain… and every beating heart… was designed to for one single purpose, to bring glory to their creator. And the design was good. It all worked. The saw was sharp.

Sin & Redemption: In chapter three we will see how sin corrupted the goodness of God’s creation. When that sin entered the story, all of creation began to groan in pain, for that original goodness was lost. It was not just humanity’s moral compass that was lost, but all of creation suffered under the consequences of Adam’s sin.

Romans 8:20–21 “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

Illustration - Ruined Castles (Charnock): Sin has marred the image of God, but it has not erased it. One author described mankind after sin’s entrance as like ruins of an old castle. When you look at a ruin of an old castle, you can see the glory of what once was there, even though its marred and fallen to pieces in some places. In Genesis 1, we see that man was made as an image of God. By Genesis 3, we fall into ruins, but the image is still there.

Our Identity: But what I want us to see here is that this “goodness” forms our identity. Though this original goodness was lost, and though we have lost our way, due to sin, the design has not changed. Sin may have broken off the saw’s teeth and the sharp edges, but we are still a saw. We were designed for a purpose, to bring glory to God. This means that the purpose of your life, whether you realize it or not, is the same as the day God spoke the universe into being. You are made to glorify God. And your soul will not be satisfied until you do what you were made to do. You can “kick against the goads” your whole life, trying to find some purpose to satisfy, but there is no purpose that can satisfy than the one your maker made you for. In Christ alone, are we restored. In Christ alone, are we able to glorify God. In Christ alone, our original purpose is reset and equipped to function properly. Until we have Christ, our purpose will never be in alignment. The call on our life is to repent of our sin, to turn to Christ, to see his death in our place on the cross as the just penalty for our sin, to receive his forgiveness by grace, and to begin a life with God, in the midst of this fallen world, aimed for the first time at our true purpose.

The goodness of God showcases the glory of God!

IV THE IMAGE OF GOD

Third, humanity is uniquely designed as image-bearers of God. The story of creation hits its pinnacle on the sixth day. On the sixth day, God made man. And mankind was made very differently and uniquely from every other creature. He was made “in the image of God.” In fact this idea is so central to our identity, that a short poem is given to it in verse 27.

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Image of God: This idea of being made in “God’s image” has been a point of theological question for millennium. And it is central to our understanding of our identity, of who we are, and what are we are supposed to be doing. Next week, when we study Genesis chapter 2, we will dig into humanity’s commissioning and purpose with much greater detail. Here, I want to focus in on what it means that we are made in the image of God.

General Sense: In a general sense, the phrase was not uncommon to the Ancient Near Eastern world. Pharoes in Egypt were called “the image of God”. But a common worker who worked construction was not. In the Biblical account, all mankind, from the least to the greatest is said to be in the “image of God.” We have the utter supreme privelege in all of creation of representing God. Though we are human, though there is a vast distance between us and God, we are like living statues of God’s glory. When you see another human, whether they be a King, or a pauper, they are made in the image of God. Let me list a few important implications of this theology.

1 Sanctity: First, sanctity. All human life, from the womb all the way to the tomb is sacred. It’s an image-bearer. To take away the life of a man, made in the image of God, without just cause, is to assault the glory of God. We must cherish human life. Any movement or thought that devalues human life ought to be putrid in the eyes of a Christian.

2 Spirituality: Second, as made in the image of God we are endowed with a spirit. Humans seek transcendance. We seek God. Gorillas don’t seek God. Giraffes don’t seek God. Butterflies and kangaroos don’t seek God. Image-bearers seek God. There is a woven religious aspect to the human experience, because we were woven by God for God. If you are in this room, and you are not a Christian, you are going against your design. You can no more ignore the upward pull of your soul towards God, then you can pretend that you don’t have a brain inside your head. We’re spiritual creatures, created for the one true and living God.

3 Rationality: Third, rationality. We are thinking creatures. Every other animal has one degree of thinking to another. Some animals have such high thinking that they have been trained to do basic sign language. But not humans. Humanity is made utterly unique. Our rationality is nothing like the animal world. We build skyscrapers and jet planes and space stations. We operate in an orderly and logical way. This is not accidental. God made us for a purpose, to use our rationality to the glory of God.

4 Dignity: Fourth, dignity. Every human being you ever made is worthy of dignity, because they are made in the image of God. The basis of human dignity is the image of God. To demean another human is assault the glory of God. This is why something like the sin of racism or ethnocentrism is so awful. It's because God created humanity in his image, therefore we have dignity. And to demean a human being is to assault the glory of God. This means for the Christian that every person we encounter is worthy of respect, love, cherishing even.

5 Morality: Fifth, morality. God made us with a conscience that bears the markings of God’s morality. Before the law was ever written in stone to Moses, humanity knew the basic law of God because it was written on our heart. We know right from wrong. Humans generally know murder is wrong. Humans generally know that rape is wrong. That children are to be taken care of. Where does this come from? This morlaity is woven into our nature.

Atheist’s Problem: Let me take this from a slightly different angle. If you are in here today, and you say “I don’t believe in God, but I do believe that man is worthy of dignity, and that is morality in this world, and that life is to be protected,” how do you arrive at those conclusions from a universe without God. Where does morality come from? If not from God, then morality is nothing more than man-made conventions that can be changed as soon as the cultural winds. There is no fixed morality without God. If you believe people have an inherent dignity, but you don’t believe in God, why do they have dignity? Where does their dignity come from? You cannot objectively arrive at susbstantive basis for why we ought to treat humans with dignity, unless we’re made in teh image of God.

Atheist’s Convenience: I think the reason so many in our world today choose to live in this awkward disunity of saying on the one hand “humans have dignity” but on the other hand “there is no God” is because its convenient for them to do so. If there is no God, then you are free to live however you want. If there is no God, then there is no judge to whom we will give an account of our lives one day. If there is no God, then there is no reckoning of our sin, no standard for righteousness. A godless worldview is a very convenient worldview if you’re aim is to simply please yourself in this life. The problem with it, is that it isn’t true. The evidence is all around you.

Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

No human being will have any excuse on their judgment day for why they ignored the clear and overwhelming call of God on their life. All of creation is the theater of God’s glory!

Conclusion

I am going to conclude wtih a prayer out of Psalm 104. Psalm 104 is a creation Psalm, praising God for creation. I invite you to open your heart and posture it in such a way that this prayer of Psalm 104, becomes the meditation of your own heart.